North Korea Threatens to Sink a U.S. Carrier. Could They?

In the latest salvo from North Korea, the country's state newspaper has likened an approaching U.S. aircraft carrier to a "gross animal" and threatened to sink the ship with one blow. Could North Korea really destroy an American aircraft carrier ? The answer is almost certainly no.

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Yesterday, North Korea's state paper the Rodong Shinmun warned: "Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a single strike." The warning was issued after it was revealed the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was headed to the Korean Peninsula. Two Japanese destroyers, the Ashigara and Samidare, are joining up with the carrier strike group, which consists of the Vinson, the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain, and guided missile destroyers USS Wayne E. Meyer and USS Michael Murphy.

North Korea has the fourth largest military in the world, consisting of 1,190,000 men and women under arms. That's pretty impressive considering there are only 25 million people in the entire country. Still, that's a reflection of how many people wear a uniform, not actual military strength. There are reasons to be concerned about the country's military—for instance, its aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons. But when it comes to ways to sink an aircraft carrier, North Korea has relatively little ability to project power beyond its borders.

Kh-35 missile, or North Korean copy of a Kh-35 missile, launched from a surface ship.

KCNA photo.

Modern anti-ship missiles are probably the best way to sink a carrier. North Korea is known to possess anti-ship missiles, but most of them are obsolete models descended from the Soviet 1960s-era Styx missile, including the Chinese Silkworm. The Styx was one of the first anti-ship missiles; it sank the Israeli destroyer Eilat in 1967. The Silkworm in particular has a 1,000-lb. shaped charge warhead that would likely damage a carrier's hull.

But while they are powerful, these missiles are old and vulnerable to modern electronic countermeasures and air defenses. They also have a fairly short range—shorter than the aircraft on the carrier itself. So it would be easy for a ship like the Vinson to sit off the coastline and safely launch airstrikes.

A newer missile, what appears to be a copy of a Russian Kh-35 anti-ship missile, appeared in North Korea in 2014. While a Kh-35 would have a better chance of scoring a hit on a carrier, they also suffer from a range limitation, and North Korea probably could not bring more than a handful of them to bear on the Vinson at a time.

Two Su-25 attack aircraft at the Wonsan Air Festival, September 2016.

Ed JonesGetty Images

Another way to sink a carrier is with aircraft carrying rockets and bombs. North Korea has a fleet of jet fighters and attack aircraft, but the newest are MiG-29 "Fulcrum" fighters nearly 30 years old. North Korea has only five flyable Fulcrums. North Korea also has 35 Su-25 ground attack aircraft similar to the A-10 Thunderbolt II, but lacking a big gun. While these could make attack runs on a carrier, they're more useful supporting ground troops, and North Korea would have to choose between attacking a carrier or its stated goal of "liberating" South Korea by invasion.

All 40 aircraft, while capable of carrying bombs and rockets, could probably do some damage to temporarily interrupt flight operations on a full-size nuclear aircraft carrier, but by no means could sink it. Pitted against four Aegis air defense destroyers protecting the Carl Vinson, it's unlikely any of the 40 aircraft would return to base.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Romeo class submarine.

KCNA photo.

Finally, a submarine—or even better, a group of submarines—could try to sink the Vinson. North Korea has about 40 subs, including 20 ancient Romeo-class submarines, 10 smaller Sang-O ("Shark") coastal submarines, and 10 Yeono-class midget submarines. Most recently, a Yeono-class sub is thought to have sunk the South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonanwith a torpedo. While this was a considerable feat for North Korea, the Cheonan was ambushed unprepared, while the Vinson would have its escorts busy searching for the noisy, easily detected North Korean submarines. Vinson also weighed about 98,500 tons more than the Cheonan, making it more difficult to sink, and has a double hull to protect against torpedo attacks.

Hwasong-7 missiles on parade, April 2012.

Ed JonesGetty Images

And then there are nukes? North Korea is definitely a nuclear power, and may have as many as a dozen nukes. We don't know if any of these nukes are weaponized—that is, suitable for placing on missiles such as the Hwasong-7, one of the country's older and more reliable designs based on the original Soviet Scud. While Hwasong-7 has a respectable 621-mile range, it's also unguided, meaning that by the time the missile reaches its target (if it hasn't already been shot down), a moving target such as an aircraft carrier would already be miles away.

In the end, North Korea has an even bigger and more basic problem: It couldn't actually find a carrier if it wanted to. The country has shore-based radars, but those have limited range and a carrier can easily stay out of range. A carrier's aircraft and escorts will shoot down or sink any of North Korea's aircraft, drones, submarines, or surface ships before they gets with sensor range of the mother ship. While this isn't guaranteed in every scenario, North Korea's antiquated equipment is easily to detect.

The only near-invulnerable means of detecting a carrier, a satellite, is out of the country's grasp. The failure of the U.S. media last week to realize the Vinson was in the Indian Ocean, and not the Sea of Japan, was telling because North Korea didn't realize the gaffe either. And there's nothing more North Korea would like to do than to call the United States on empty promises.

North Korea's warning that it would destroy an aircraft carrier is the usual bluster from Pyongyang that has little grounding in reality. Starved of funds, North Korea has poured military expenditures into nuclear weapons whose effects are measured in miles. Even then, a carrier is surprisingly nimble and a difficult target to hit. While carriers aren't invulnerable against every potential adversary—Russia and China are two notable examples—a carrier such as the Vinson has little to fear from North Korea.

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